Big Hero 6

“Big Hero 6” is based on a team of comic book superheroes appearing in Marvel Comics. It tells the story of 14 year old Hiro (Ryan Potter), who suffers incredible losses, faces a masked villain, gains some friends and suffers even more losses.

Had Hiro been a normal boy, it would have been hard to justify the light tone of the film, as he is leading an extremely traumatic life, but Hiro isn’t normal. Firstly, he is a 3D computer-animated character and secondly he is so brilliant that he enters university at the age of 14. Here hangs out with his much older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) and his much older friends Gogo (Jamie Chung), Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr.), Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez) and Fred (T. J. Miller) and meets professor Callaghan (James Cromwell) and entrepreneur Krei (Alan Tudyk). When a masked villain steals Hiro’s newest invention, he has to turn himself and his friends into super heroes while forming a close friendship with the personal healthcare robot Baymax (Scott Adsit), which his brother has invented.

All the losses that Hiro has to suffer makes this film at least PG-rated, but I quite like it, although it isn’t surprising, but actually a bit boring at times. The robot is the star of the film - big, cuddly and kind like so many animated characters before him from Baloo in “The Jungle Book” to Sulley in “Monsters Inc.” - and the friendship between him and Hiro is quite touching. I found it much too easy to guess the identity of the masked villain, though, and all of the characters are extremely stereotype, especially the female characters, Hiro’s Aunt Cass (Maya Rudolph) included.

What I like the best about “Big Hero 6” is how San Francisco and Tokyo has merged into one city: San Fransokyo, taking the best from both. That is brilliant. Moreover, YouTubers Dan Howell and Phil Lester cameo as two of Krei’s technicians, at least in the UK-version.

The film is directed by Dan Hall and Chris Williams, it lasts 102 minutes and I’ll give it three out of five stars: ***